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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23052577">5 times she called him</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/maketea/pseuds/maketea'>maketea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, F/M, Fluff, Identity Reveal, Phone Calls, happy birthday audrey ilu sm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:15:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23052577</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/maketea/pseuds/maketea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>and one time she didn't need to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>410</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>5 times she called him</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yunyin/gifts">Yunyin</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I HEARD THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE IT WAS THE LOVELY YUNYIN'S BIRTHDAY TODAY !!!! </p><p>happy birthday audrey ;__; even though we haven't really talked your presence means so much to me. you've always been so supportive of my fics and your comments make me so so happy! your kindness is just one of the blessings you serve this fandom and we are all so lucky to have you! on top of that your art is such a big source of inspiration for me! going through your art tag and looking through all your works motivates me to create more of my own art, so thank you ToT idk what i would do without your beautiful beautiful presence around &lt;33</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1.</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>Françoise Dupont was, effectively, an akuma breeding ground. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette, pressed to the bricks at the back of her school, fumbled for her phone, one eye focused on the cluster of panicked</span>
  <em>
    <span> collégiens</span>
  </em>
  <span> scurrying around the pavement. Wreckouteur — Théo, perhaps? A peer listener in the </span>
  <em>
    <span>quatrième </span>
  </em>
  <span>who missed a meeting too many and got his badge revoked — stood menacingly atop a lamppost, tearing pages from his sleek journal. She watched as one fluttered onto Sabrina’s hair; immediately she burst into tears, sobbing about her one-sided friendship with Chloé.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finding the number in her contacts, Marinette hit call. She had to get out of there. Those painful nights she cried about Adrien would not be exposed by an akumatized underclassman who pulled out everyone’s sorrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, Bugaboo?” Chat Noir said once the call connected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you near Françoise Dupont?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Transformed and ready to go. What do you need?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lure Wreckouteur to the Eiffel Tower. I’ll take care of the civilians. Just him being here is freaking them out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go get ‘em, Tiger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He meowed into the phone, chuckled, then hung up. Marinette shook her head with a smile, and peered back around the brick wall to see Chat Noir swinging up on his staff.</span>
</p><p> </p><p><strong>2.</strong> </p><p>
  <span>That stupid cat was always losing his burner phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was either that, or he had napped through patrol. Either way, they agreed on 4:25PM sharp, and Ladybug decided her leniency stopped after twenty minutes of pacing a rooftop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tapped her foot. Glanced at her yo-yo. Tapped her foot some more. Then, for the fifth time, slammed her thumb down on </span>
  <em>
    <span>call</span>
  </em>
  <span>. If he didn’t pick up this time, she’d do a round of the city and go home. He knew she was on a time crunch, what with those quizzes Ms Mendeleiev scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just before she hung up, the call connected. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Heyyy</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Bugaboo, what’s up?” a sheepish and out-of-breath Chat Noir greeted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re late.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can explain—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The </span>
  <em>
    <span>one</span>
  </em>
  <span> night I tell you to be quick, and you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>late?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's not my fault!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ladybug's foot began to tap once again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chat Noir sighed. The phone line crackled. "I ran out of camembert and don't have time to get more. Plagg refuses to transform me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He </span>
  <em>
    <span>refuses?"</span>
  </em>
  <span> she repeated. "I've seen him eat a macaron and he was fine!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>You </span>
  </em>
  <span>try reasoning with him!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fine. Put me on speaker."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Wait, really?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I said put me on speaker!" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"As My Lady wishes." There was a pause, before, a little distantly, Chat Noir said, "she wants to talk to you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence filled the line. Chat Noir </span>
  <em>
    <span>and </span>
  </em>
  <span>his kwami's bated breath were palpable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hey, Plagg," Ladybug said sweetly, "if you transform Chat Noir, I'll get you bread for all of your cheese."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another incredulous pause.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A-all of it?" Plagg asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ladybug smiled. "Everything you could ever imagine."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Although she couldn't see his face, Chat Noir's voice was clear against the microphone once again, muttering his gratitudes down the line.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You're the best, Ladybug," he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"So I've heard." But this time, she wasn't frowning. "Now hurry up. I'm still on that time crunch."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>3.</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>Actually, it was him who called her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, she pulled her normal phone off charge and pressed it to her ear. "Hello?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the ringing continued.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blearily, she looked at her static lockscreen of Adrien, then sat up in bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was when she recognised the ringtone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She flipped her pillow around, and from inside it, her burner phone fell out. Chat Noir's number flashed onscreen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Akuma?" she said once the call connected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he said mid-yawn. "What happened?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What're you talking about?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You called me at 4AM. I was asleep."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No, I didn't."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah you did, Bug."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She closed her sleep-slicked eyes and racked her memory. Yes, she had been awake at 4AM, or sometime around that, at least. It started off with a design she wanted to get done, and quickly turned into staring at her ceiling from 1AM onwards after having exhausted all her sleep techniques long ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meditation. ASMR. She even reread her organic chemistry notes eight times, but the only thing she got out of that was prep for next week's test.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she wandered into her burner phone, traipsing through her conversation with Chat Noir. Headphones still plugged in from the ineffective ASMR, she pressed play on one of his voice messages.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the one she sent back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the one he sent back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the one she…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette realised pretty fast that night that Chat Noir's voice lulled her better than any meditative audio could.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She must have hit </span>
  <em>
    <span>call</span>
  </em>
  <span> on their conversation while sinking to sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Ah, I'm sorry. That was an accident," Marinette said at last.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't sweat it. Everything's okay?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Everything's great."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was her cue to hang up — or perhaps it was his. It was still early, six o'clock was what she saw in big white numerics on her lockscreen, and both of them could be squeezing in a few extra hours of sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither cut the call. They both stayed on the line, breathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't wanna get up," he said finally, and yawned again. His bed sheets rustled around the microphone. "I wish I could sleep more."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why can't you? It's Saturday."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I have a photo— uh, an appointment at 8AM. My father always schedules them early so I can fit more things in during the day."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"More things? What do you do on Saturdays?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"A language class, a bit of sport, a fundraising event, another appointment somewhere else—"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That sounds awful."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You get used to it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You shouldn't have to get used to it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chat Noir stayed quiet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette laced her duvet between her fingers. "Do you really have to get up?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He groaned an affirmative.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"C'mon kitty. You can do this."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't wanna."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'll be your cheerleader. Chat Noir! Chat Noir! Chat Noir!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His laughter was muffled, possibly against his pillow. "Can't I just keep you in my pocket and have you cheer me on all day?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Aw, kitty-cat. I'll always be here to cheer you on."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another silence. Marinette didn't expect her words to be so soaked in sentiment, but she could hardly take them back, now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Alright, alright." He yawned once more, then his bed creaked, and the duvet moved away from the microphone. "I'm up. You go back to sleep."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Trust me, I will."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And Ladybug?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hm?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thanks for cheering for me. I'll be your cheerleader whenever you need me, too."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>4.</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>The voice messages weren’t enough.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette wiped her eyes and nose on the back of her hand, and paused the audio she was playing. It was the longest one she had from him — almost forty-five seconds long. Something about the terrible walk back to his house after a battle, and how the rain had ruined his hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It got a giggle out of her, at least, but didn’t stop the terrible force threatening to crush her lungs like a paper ball. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she hit </span>
  <em>
    <span>call.</span>
  </em>
  <span> On purpose this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While it rang, she sniffed the mucus out of her nose, hauled herself up in bed, and washed down her thick voice with a large swig of lukewarm water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chat Noir picked up while she was still drinking. “Hey, My Lady, everything okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She swallowed for what felt like the hundredth time that night, but this time it mattered. This time she couldn’t worry him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Just, uh…” Marinette chewed on her dry lip. “Talk to me about something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You seem like the type of guy to know a lot of cool stuff. Talk to me about something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“U-uh, sure, Ladybug, but is that all you called me for?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Flush, as hot and as painful as sunburn, crawled up her face. Not only on her skin, but in her throat, invading her windpipe, her oesophagus, the flesh inside her cheeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette nodded with a mouthful of sunburn, before she realised this was a phone call. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just felt a little lonely,” she confessed, giving him a glimpse of her sorrow. “Just wanted to hear a comforting voice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My Lady…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Honestly, it’s no big deal. If you’re busy—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I’m not busy at all.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Never for you</span>
  </em>
  <span> went unsaid. “Do you wanna know something cool I learned about zodiac signs yesterday?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While Chat Noir talked to her about moon signs, Marinette lay face-down and soaked her tears into her pillow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>5.</strong>
</p><p>
  <span>She hadn't meant it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Often, when Chloé said her name, enunciating it in the way she did (Marinette Dupain-</span>
  <em>
    <span>Cheng</span>
  </em>
  <span>), Marinette allowed her mother's advice to play and replay in her head while she counted to ten. Calm down first, when you're angry, Sabine always said. Speak once your heartbeat comes down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But after watching Chat Noir getting sawed through the stomach by an akumatized arborist, there wasn't enough brain left in her to spell her own name, let alone count to ten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stood, fresh from her Miraculous Ladybug, and as if nothing had happened, as if she wasn't trembling all over and her eyes weren't darting so quick she thought they'd roll back into her head, he extended his fist, cocked an eyebrow, and said, "pound it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lone audience of an akuma victim was still too public. Ladybug didn't notice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What's </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span> with you?" she screamed, and banged her hands against his chest. He stumbled back, more from shock than impact, but she hit his chest again. "Why would you </span>
  <em>
    <span>do that?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He blinked at her, bemused. Then recognition fell over his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I was protecting you," he said simply, easing her hands off him and holding them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ladybug crushed his fingers against her palm. "I can protect myself!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He let go of her. "I'm your </span>
  <em>
    <span>partner</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Ladybug."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Oh yeah? Well I'd rather have no partner than a partner who keeps getting himself killed."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was out of her mouth before she could think, acerbic like a spit of venom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t mean that,” he said softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she didn’t — he was right, always right when it came to her — but there had been no going back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> know?” she said instead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That had been a month ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette usually rolled her eyes at intermittent akumas, but she found herself hoping, hope a solid swell in her chest, that perhaps an alert would wake her up before her alarm clock. She’d even be happy with something trivial — a cat stuck in a tree, a doll fallen into the train tracks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because then she’d have her answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Chat Noir turned up, she hadn’t ruined things. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn’t ready to entertain the idea of him </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> turning up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that night that idea had been playing jump rope in her belly, leaping and hopping and getting so tangled she wanted to be sick. Marinette looked at her teary reflection on the burner phone — swollen eyes, bright nose, face slouching against her pillow as she flicked her screen on, thought better of it, and switched it back off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had to know. She had to apologise.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had to hear his voice. She felt like she could die if she didn’t hear from him again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette flicked her screen on. She tapped her contacts, tapped his faceless icon, and pressed call. Putting the phone to her ear, she chewed on her sore thumb nail while the call connected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hey, My Lady."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She burst into tears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette sniffled and hiccupped and grabbed her pillow from under her head to push into her face while Chat Noir asked her over and over what happened, was she okay, where she was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm just so happy to hear your voice," she said, peeling the pillow off her damp mouth. "I'm so sorry. I missed you so much. I don't know what I'd do without you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She said this while he hushed her, the susurration of the sea cresting at the sand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Let's meet somewhere?" he said. "Montparnasse Tower?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah. Yeah. I'll be there in five."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was. He was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't say anything. Neither did she.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Chat Noir stood from the edge of the tower, stepped forward, and opened his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She fell in, grasping at him, murmuring what could've been an </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you</span>
  </em>
  <span> if he had heard it right.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <strong>and:</strong>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>For the first time, Marinette was awake long enough to find out how they always changed positions while they slept.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Often, they fell asleep back to back, and woke up with Marinette’s head on Adrien’s chest, exchanging confused (and amused) smiles, asking </span>
  <em>
    <span>how did we manage it this time</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the cold. Always the cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Asleep, Adrien shuffled under the duvet, then out of the duvet, mumbled as he dreamt, and ended up curled into Marinette’s side, his head resting on the soft flesh of her bicep, while he cuddled her middle close. She nosed away his hair and kissed his forehead, before resting her cheek against his head and watching the moon through her skylight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was so lucky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps Adrien having to sneak into her room at 11PM wasn’t ideal, and perhaps having to hold hands behind the cover of a speech podium during press conferences wasn’t perfect, but Marinette still knew how it felt to giggle against his — Adrien’s, Chat Noir’s — lips, and how it felt for him to tug at her sleeve until she hugged him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, he was here. She was here. Their burner phones had been forgotten in some drawer or another, uncharged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette glanced down at Adrien as he mumbled some more. He was dreaming, she thought fondly, and grazed her fingers against the back of his neck. A good dream, she hoped, and kissed his forehead again. (He told her time and time again he always slept the best with her).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was one of these pensive nights Marinette would give her partner a call, watching the moonlight through her skylight and her heart filled to the brim with cliché sentiments she wanted to write poetry about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Her poetry was terrible. But at least she had another hopeless romantic to share her thoughts with).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But her kitty was asleep, and she wouldn’t wake him up just to wax poetic about the moonlight on his temple, nor the shadows under his lashes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Marinette kissed his forehead again. He stirred, this time, and raised his head from its nook under her cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” she whispered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He blinked. “Hey.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nuzzled his nose. “I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sleepily, he pulled himself up the bed to plant a kiss on her lips. “I love you, too.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/maketca">maketca</a><br/>tumblr: <a href="https://rosekasa.tumblr.com">rosekasa</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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